


A Beast Among Bookends: or, How to Domesticate Your Feral Librarian

by Millberry_5



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: "Librarian" Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dark Obi-Wan Kenobi, M/M, Obi-Wan gets possessed and kidnapped in the first chapter and we never fully recover, Sith AU, Sith Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sith library AU, Tags will be added as they become relevant, boundaries are not respected in this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2020-09-01 22:47:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20265742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millberry_5/pseuds/Millberry_5
Summary: A separation and a tumble on a mission leads Obi-Wan Kenobi down a different path in life.Years later, during the clone wars, the 212th is sent to take out Darth Libri after failed attempts by both the CIS and Republic to sway him to their sides. The mission does not go well.But if Cody choosing to stay with the vode's nightmare for a bit can spare his brothers, well... that's not really a choice, is it?





	1. The Divergence

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be like... a chapter or two. But then the vode/clones server had Ideas. Now there's Plot.
> 
> So here's what's basically the prologue chapter, a premise presented in fragments!

Obi-Wan breathed in raggedly as he struggled to stay upright. He leaned against the warm side of the cave. His ribs had definitely cracked during his tumble down.

The dust settled a bit more and he looked around cautiously with his glow stick lamp. The walls were obviously machine-dug and there were wires going along the wall to old-looking light fixtures. An old mining tunnel, most likely.

The hole he had fallen through was such a long drop, he couldn’t see any light at the end, although he could still hear the voices of his pursuers.

There were no side tunnels he could see or sense, just the one he was in.

He heard a door slam open, followed by shouts and footsteps pounding down steps. He couldn’t tell how many people were coming towards him exactly, just that there were too many to fight injured without a lightsaber.

He couldn’t go that way. The other way though…

Dark.

He still couldn’t tell how, but it was dark. What bit of force sense wasn’t being interfered with by his likely concussion or the overwhelming darkness was his prescience telling him that it was dangerous that way.

But not necessarily deadly.

He jumped across the tunnel as he heard something clatter down the hole.

A few canisters hit the ground and started releasing gas. Great. Exactly what he needed.

He needed to reunite with his master.

He needed to be alive to do that.

He hobbled towards the darkness on what was definitely a sprained ankle, holding his sleeve to his face to prevent the gas from affecting him too much.

* * *

_You won’t be able to open that door without it._

“No.”

_Did you not say that you wanted out? This is how._

“I will not. It is not the Jedi way.”

_Does the current iteration of Jedi have rules about ensuring they’re so weak they die, then?_

“It is not weakness to be strong enough to resist the dark!”

_In this moment it is self-preservation. Is living weakness, then?_

“Of course not. But you’re making false equivalencies.”

_No, not any more than you are. What technique is light or dark is determined by the those defining them at the moment. We do not care for such distinctions. You are bringing definitions into this that need not be here and will only lead to your death._

“You already said you don’t like Jedi. Not sure why you’re bothering to pretend to be disappointed by me not trying to live... From your point of view, at least.”

_I don’t like people who try to kill me. Neither do you. We have that in common. I just don’t see why one so curious is denying themself knowledge._

“I-“

_You’ve already been down here for two weeks. You ran out of water yesterday. If you do not open that door today you will die._

_We could make it easier on you, you know. Do it for you._

“Sith don’t do that sort of thing for free. Just what would that cost me?”

_The cost, I suppose is in the technique, although we would also have you remove us from here. It is far too dull an afterlife down here._

“What is the cost?”

_No need to sound so stern. You just need to let one of us possess you for a bit. Feed off of your connection to the force while we do it. It actually won’t be that bad for you, since you’re so connected to the unifying force, most of the energy can be taken that way_.

* * *

_This isn’t what you promised! _He shouted internally, watching his body move on commands not his own.

_No, but we did not preclude it from our deal. _Said the voice he had internally dubbed The Mean One.

_Don’t worry, we’ll teach you a lot of great things. We just need some time to stop you from thinking in such self-dulling ways. _Continued The Unhinged One.

“Yes, just the knife, thank you,” The Calm One made his body say to the stall-keeper.

Obi-Wan cried inwardly as his body moved back into the alleys, coming to the little alcove they had decided to squat in until they could get off planet.

Obi-Wan cried, both internally and externally, as he watched his body’s reflection in a broken mirror. Watched his hand unflinchingly take the knife to the back of his head and cut off the nerf tail.

He gave one last desperate attempt to wrest control back as The Calm One raised his hands to his padawan braid.

* * *

“Dead, he is? Sure of this, you are?” Yoda asked him, ears tightening back in stress.

“Yes. I felt him for some time after we were separated, then panic through our bond, then nothing. I was unable to seek him out until the crisis was over. My extra investigation led to a mine. It had been abandoned after they accidentally hit an expanding magma chamber,” Qui-Gon stopped to take a breath. Trying to keep at least a little composure.

“I found his broken saber near a battlefield. And an old supply chute whose cover he apparently broke through,” he strangled out of himself, “the tunnel he dropped into had gas cannisters and no signs of battle or Obi-Wan. I can only can only conclude that he inhaled some of the gas, became fazed, and traveled far down, then accidentally fell into one of the lava pits.”

Yoda’s ears drooped in grief, his eyes closing.

“A good padawan, he was. A good Jedi, he would have been.”

* * *

_Why do you not work on this? I thought you found it interesting._

“I’m more interested in getting out of here. Since you purposefully crashed the ship, I see no reason to do any homework you assign me,” Obi-Wan huffed. Screwing his eyes shut in an admittedly futile attempt to make the ghost leave him alone.

_Come now, I’m not lying. You learn from us, and we will let you leave._

“Yeah. After you’ve made me learn so much Sith-spit, literally, that I can’t go back to the Jedi.”

Obi-Wan tensed as he felt sick pleasure roll through the room, but kept his stubborn form of ignoring The Calm One. The closed eyes didn’t prevent him from imagining the ghost’s sick smile.

_Clever apprentice_.

* * *

“Grieving, you are. Natural, this is. But let it cloud you, not.”

“I know Master Yoda, and I am trying. I just… I don’t know.”

“Hmph. Used to not knowing, you are not. Come, come.”

“Master Yoda, I appreciate your concern, but I don’t think I can be attentive enough for children at the moment.”

“About this, worry not. Let them ask you questions, you shall. Get used to not knowing answers again, you shall.”

* * *

_Again._

Obi-Wan spit as much sand out of his mouth as he could and pushed himself up. Letting another trap get him because he wasn’t looking was ridiculous.

“Under what circumstances-“ he rolled under swiping arms of stone, trying to reach his destination again, “would I need to handle all of this-“ a quick jump back, to avoid the pit suddenly opening under him, then dropping to avoid another volley of poison arrows, “at the same time?!”

_If you don’t train for it, little brat? Only once._

* * *

“Mum! I saw a star dragon in the market!”

“Ani?”

“Well, they were a human on the outside, but a star dragon inside! I know it!”

“All right dear, I trust you.”

“It was so wizard! And…”

“Ani?”

Obi-Wan was a block away before the mother could come to the window.

* * *

_Meet something interesting?_

“Little boy. Basically a sun.”

_What does that mean? Sounds fun!_

“Means I never saw anything quite like it. So much raw strength, and so young…” Obi-Wan trailed off as he finished writing the filing for his acquisition.

_You did not bring the sun back with you?_

“No. He’s quite attached to his mother. And the new slave rebellion,” Obi-Wan said absently, standing up to crack his back. Flying was never fun, especially not for the body.

_In Hutt Space? That likely won’t last._

“Hmm… Perhaps not, perhaps it will,” Obi-Wan let a smile he usually reserved for only the more interesting discoveries to surface.

_Oh? That sounds promising._

“Don’t worry, Master Impermis. I’ll update you as things develop,” he said, letting his smile morph into a shark-toothed grin.

* * *

“Master Windu, I really don’t know what to tell you that I haven’t put into that report. Many ancient sites have been disturbed. Many ruins. Some of which we didn’t even know existed. A few places we know are missing things, others, we have no idea. Sometimes, whoever reports it senses something dark,” Jocasta explained, not as harshly as she could. Mace Windu was a hard worker, with a lot of work, she could respect that.

As well as his respect for proper filing and paperwork.

“So why are they being reported as one thing? Is there a connection between them?”

“Not really, beyond each incident being highly unusual. These sites aren’t disturbed except by Jedi. The more prominent ones have guards to interfere with any treasure-hunting, but it’s been twelve years since anyone got past them, until these last four years.”

“Alright, I’ll see if we can get a shadow or two on this. With any luck, some mercenaries figured out how to get in and out and are selling all this on the black market.”

* * *

Obi-Wan stumbled out of his quarters and hurried to the control panel. Confused when it seemed like everything was fine.

He groaned, grabbed some weapons for fighting and containing, then started his trek of checking up on everyone and everything.

_You felt it as well, apprentice?_

_Yes. But nothing’s showing up as broken on the machines. Kriffin circuits can’t be trusted._

_Normally, I’m fine with you being grouchy, but pretend you actually got more than an hour of sleep and feel. Please._

Okay, if Master Tonitru was telling him to calm down and reassess…

_It’s far. Very far. And now it’s deliberately hidden._

He could still feel the ripples though, in a place like this, for someone like him, it echoed so it could be studied.

_Indeed._

_It’s… I think something happened with the Banites._

_Those party-poopers? Again?_

_Probably a betrayal. Master or Apprentice? What do you all think?_

The consensus was the master was likely killed. Or at least grievously injured.

_Well, that’s not my problem. Might as well get started for the day._

_I doubt you can do good analysis of that data with so little sleep._

Obi-Wan warred with himself, because if Master Impermis was telling him to put off research, he was probably getting bad. But like hell he was letting himself be ruled by something as boring as sleep, or nagging.

* * *

Mace Windu sat himself down in the back of the cantina, releasing his hold on the force an iota.

Two minutes later, Quinlan Vos slid into the other side of the booth, mug of beer in hand and usual ruffian disguise still on.

“I think it’s a single humanoid actually breaking in. I can’t figure out much more than that on the who or how.”

“And the why?”

“Well, unless they’re selling on some really private market in Freedom Alliance space, it doesn’t look like they’re selling at all,” Quinlan huffed, crossing his arms, “which both narrows down the why and makes it more mysterious.”

“Nothing in Hutt Space?” Mace asked, because the idea of someone collecting all these artifacts, without selling them, seemed ridiculous. Except, well, after Naboo...

“Nope. The usual few low-level things, some fakes. But none of the stuff we’re looking for.”

Kriff. Not selling meant collecting. Most of the artifacts were dark or grey.

“I would hope, if they were using them, we would have noticed,” Mace probed.

Quinlan shrugged, “or they’re gearing up to use them all at once. But it is a big galaxy.”

Mace internally shuddered at the idea of someone trying to do something that would make them want all of those artifacts at once.

“Spend another month and a half on this. If nothing else can be found, we’ll put this on the back burner,” Mace said.

Quinlan grunted as he finished his drink.

“You better get going, a certain gang I’m trying to get in with is showing up soon.”

* * *

_ "Theft at National Museum of Saleucami by Cloaked Being" _

_“National Treasure Lost in Saleucami Museum Theft”_

_“Saleucami’s Divining Staff Stolen by Cloaked Stranger”_

_“Police and Security Leadless on Saleucami Museum Theft”_

* * *

“Master Yoda, Master Windu, Master Nu.”

“Knight Vos. You’ve heard about Kasshyk?” Mace returned.

“No. Haven’t had time since coming out from cover, I’m afraid.”

“You seem to have been right. A single cloaked humanoid invaded the old temple ruins and evaded the pursuing Wookies, aided by force abilities. With a large package and two deaths,” Jocasta Nu grumbled.

Quinlan paused at that. A single Wookie was hard. A group even harder. A group dedicated to protecting a place on their home turf? Getting away from that was insane, especially if you anger the others by killing one or two.

* * *

“Master Windu, all due respect, but this isn’t really my forte. I don’t do senatorial. They’re going to expect nice. I’m not nice on anything but the eyes.”

“The Chancellor requested me or you. I am currently trying to convince the security committees that a standing army is not needed and, if it becomes so, we should not lead it.”

Quinlan groaned.

* * *

CC-2224 saw the Jedi as his batch was going to lunch.

Dark-skinned, humanoid, and he was pretty sure those were dreadlocks.

It was simultaneously, somehow, impossibly, a moment of exhilaration and wonder, as well as disappointment.

The Jedi didn’t quite feel right. Didn’t quite feel like what CC-2224 was waiting for every time he thought about meeting the beings he was made for. It just… didn’t click right.

Maybe because he hadn’t actually met the Jedi? Once he met his Jedi face to face, then it would probably click together.

Yeah, that would do it. He was just disappointed to see a Jedi without getting to actually start serving under them.

* * *

“Master Windu, I have heard some concerning rumors lately.” _What wasn’t concerning lately?_

“Yes, we’ve been investigating. Several battles have indeed been interrupted by a single humanoid force sensitive. They are sometimes known to be seeking specific force-related objects. They have been recorded fighting CIS and Republic forces.”

“Indeed. Our intelligence indicates that the CIS has also sent a few teams to try to go after this being. To retrieve them,” Mace looked over at Yularen. That was concerning. As far as the Order could tell, the interloper was likely a Sith. Adding another Sith, especially one that likely had years of training (_and artifacts, dammit he should have kept Quinlan Vos on that_) behind him would be disastrous.

“I was thinking we should send someone as well, if we could get this being to our side, or at least to stop killing our clones,” _Men. Soldiers. The Vode. Dammit Palpatine would you just talk about them like they were people! _“then it would be a great boon to us. The public is getting nervous about our ability when a single whirlwind can steal an almost certain victory from you.” _Oh, of course it’s the Jedi’s fault. Nevermind that 75% of the time this person attacked when there weren’t Jedi on the scene._

“We traced the CIS teams to this sector.” _No. _“Given preliminary research into the sector’s history we think this planet is where the force-sensitive is based,” Yularen explained, zooming in appropriately on the map. _No, absolutely not._

“Surely the Jedi can organize a team that can retrieve this being, yes?” Tarkin said in a tone that told Mace exactly how much of a question it was for the man. But this… he couldn’t ask this of anyone. Especially not with the additional risks…

“No. We cannot.” The room looked taken aback at that. “We don’t go there. You send any Jedi there and they will, at best, die quickly.”

“And at worst, Master Jedi?” Palpatine’s tone was just a bit off, in Mace’s view, but the man always seemed a little off.

“At worst, we have an entire team of Sith, who know the Order and the Republic inside and out, running around the galaxy.”

* * *

“I don’t care what the chancellor wants! Or the professors! This man has humiliated us for the last time!” Mace shared a look with his fellow councilors as they approached the war room, wondering if the Chancellor, being force-null and older, had heard.

“Gentlebeings, I believe we are here to discuss the Ghost of Battles, yes?” The chancellor asked as he stepped through the doors.

“How we’re going to remove him, yes,” Tarkin said, almost managing to hide his vehemence from his tone.

“Well, I do think that’s quite a pity. He obviously is just a lonely soul, too curious for his own good. However, the amount of lives he’s taken is simply unacceptable.” Palpatine professed dramatically. Politicians.

“Yes, he’s started killing diplomatic envoys if that CIS intelligence is accurate,” Yularen sighed. Mace knew for a fact Ventress had been in that envoy party and barely escaped. Nothing diplomatic was going to come from that, Darth Libri had to know that.


	2. The Incident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't expect updates this quickly most of the time, especially since school is about to start.  
T_T
> 
> (Also, I usually put translations at the bottom, but Haar Dush'vorcopa is the Vode's way of calling Sith Obi-Wan, it means The Nightmare)

“Whoever sent us on this has a sick sense of humor.”

“Waxer,” Cody reprimanded.

“Sorry, commander. But, well, you know they call him the Ghost of Battles,” Waxer continued.

And yes, sometimes decisions seemed so nonsensical that assignments might as well be based on puns, like sending Ghost Company to kill the Ghost, but this wasn’t the time.

“Just keep sharp, trooper,” Cody ordered.

“Suvari,” was the reply.

Cody refocused as they came to the end of the tunnel.

There was a set of doors, black and heavy looking, probably made out of some sort of stone. As his and his men’s headlamps moved, he was pretty sure he could see etchings inlaid with gold on the doors, creating some sort of pattern.

Great. This was probably trapped too.

“Sound off,” he commanded.

Everyone who was supposed to be with him responded, to his slight relief.

“We’re still fine out here, commander, but it’s getting harder to hear you. You’re probably going to lose reception soon,” Jag commented over the comms. His voice was quiet and starting to be covered by static.

“Understood. How are Slice and Racket doing?”

“Still seem okay, just unconscious. No indication they’ll be waking up anytime soon.”

“Suvari. If anything changes out there, take them and leave. That’s a battle order, medic,” Cody ordered.

“Suvari, but battle orders still don’t overcome medic’s authority. Jag out,” the medic replied dryly before that static faded from Cody’s helmet comm.

Cody rolled his eyes before turning to his men, his vode.

“All right, men. We’ve now breached the entrance to the lair of Haar Dush’vorcopa. Good job on that. We have no idea what’s behind this door, but our orders are simple. Take him out. Killed or captured or crippled doesn’t matter. Others have already tried. Bounty hunters. The CIS. Sith. General-led units. We have been sent down here because we are an elite platoon in an elite company. We are the best of the best, and a cohesive unit on top of that. Protect ourselves and each other, survive as long as you can so we have a greater chance of taking down this monster. You are proud soldiers of the GAR. You can do this, can’t you?” Cody improvised. The air down here, on the whole kriffing planet really, but especially down here, was oppressive and unsettling.

Thankfully, his platoon replied to the rallying speech with vigorous cheers.

Cody nodded and turned back to the doors.

A small push quickly turned into a pull, then Cody was stepping back as the doors swung open of their own accord.

The room through the doors was… a bit disappointing, honestly. Anticlimactic.

Large and cavernous, with a few steps building up to a platform in the center, that had a smaller set up of the same thing on that.

As he and his vode moved through the room, headlamps swiveling around, Cody noted the steps around the perimeter, creating a sort of amphitheater.

And then there were the walls.

Carved murals covered most of the walls, depicting scenes Cody couldn’t place, some were definitely battles, others seemed to just be tributes to the central figure, more were filled with creatures that he was sure he’d never hear of, and scenes that seemed more… domestic?

Then there were the blocks that were just filled with runes or patterns that reminded Cody of the door.

Cody looked up to see the ceiling treated similarly, but almost entirely of patterns and runes.

No light fixtures. He hadn’t seen any. Was this even the right place? It seemed abandoned, besides some evidence of other landings and a crashed ship, at least a decade old, near the entrance, there was no indication anyone had approached this place for some time.

“Nothing, sir,” Boil said, finally breaking the silence. The rest of the men soon chimed in to agree.

“Right, to the next room, then,” Cody made his way around the central platforms, it seemed unwise to get on them, for some reason. None of the others had stepped on them either.

He was almost hoping that all they would find would be empty rooms. They were good soldiers, yes, but there was a reason Jedi and Sith were enemies. Force null clones didn’t stand too much of a chance, most of the time, and especially not on the Sith’s home turf. If they got it wrong, that meant he and his vode would likely live another day.

That was all they had, most days.

His men flanked the doors, waiting for Cody again, blasters at the ready. The atmosphere got more uncomfortable as he approached.

Cody approached the new set of doors, similar to the last set, and quickly tugged on one.

He jumped back, bringing his blaster up, as both doors opened in response.

Nothing but darkness greeted them.

Cody had a bad feeling about this.

Moving in cautiously, their lights slowly let them get a look at the room.

Was that… a coat rack?

“Why, hello there,” came a lilting voice. Somewhere up and on the other side of the room. He aimed his blaster out of reflex, preparing to wait and react. Some of his vode opened fire.

A familiar hiss was followed by an unwelcome red, which started deflecting shots back at them.

Cody tackled the two vode on his left, a few shots grazing his armor, but not injuring him. Nor his vode.

Cody quickly got up and fired some shots, a bit wide, enough to start illuminating their opponents actual shape and size, and hopefully distract him.

One of his shots must have hit something, as he saw a few sparks before lights, in-laid in the walls, turned on.

Still carved out of stone, the room was more industrial and filled with pallets of boxes. Haar Dush’vorcopa, and it really couldn’t be anyone else, was up on some raised walkways that went through the entire room. There were machines behind him at the end of the room. They would have to be careful of that.

And then the Sith was jumping, more like flying, across the room to the walkways on their side.

“Split and cover!” His men reacted admirably, thank goodness, because almost as soon as they start splitting up, the Sith threw lightning at them.

Everyone tried to dive for cover, all but five made it.

Cody reached and grabbed Trapper, pulling harshly and quickly. He’d probably yell at anyone else for trying that, but there was just no way you could expect him to not do anything when his vod was being electrocuted an arms-reach away.

He only got shocked for a bit, but by the time he regained his senses from that, the battle was already back in full swing.

His men were rotating between shooting and ducking behind cover, which was good, since it seemed like the Sith was unwilling to deflect shots near some of the boxes. Cody raised his weapon, setting it to a wide range stun blast, when he saw Twist get his yanked out of his hands and disassembled midair.

Right. Ducking meant less fire, which meant more concentration ability for Haar Dush’vorcopa.

If they kept at this, they were going to lose without managing anything.

Cody eyed the stairwell nearest him. He hadn’t fired any shots yet, so he wasn’t very visible. And the Sith probably wasn’t paying attention, but it was still a stupid move…

Half his men were suddenly in the air and being sent flying across the room. That settled it.

He tried to maximize speed and stealth, but on the metal walkways that meant going slow.

Once on the walkway, he waited for a dense of round of shots before charging the Sith, stun blasts firing as he yelled a war cry.

The Sith turned and tried to do something to the stun blasts, Cody had no time to try to figure out what as he launched himself at the other, his remaining vode stopping their fire for a moment.

If the Sith’s surprised noise was anything to go by, he hadn’t expected the body slam.

Despite this, it only took a moment before Haar Dush’vorcopa wrestled away from Cody enough to where he could push him back with the force.

Cody rolled and pushed himself up as soon as he stopped. The Sith was advancing on him slowly, slightly distracted by the barrage his men were dealing out. Vehemently.

He thought for a moment he heard the Sith sigh.

He tackled the Sith again as he raised a hand towards his vode. Given the gasping he was hearing through their comms instead of swearing, he was still worried he might have been too late.

For a moment, Cody had the Sith pinned, hood finally falling down to reveal a sickly pale face, untamed red hair, and stormy eyes. And eye bags that made Cody look like a model of good sleeping habits. The man was unfairly attractive despite all of this.

“Tell me, commander, do you always get so intimate with your enemies during battle?” the man said in a lazy, drawling tone before his eyes flashed golden, like lightning.

Cody felt his eyes involuntarily widen for a nanosecond in response to the question before he was being lifted up and thrown to the ground a few steps from the Sith. Who was already back on his feet.

Cody had a sneaking suspicion the other had let himself be pinned.

Shots started up again and Cody stayed on the ground, reaching to his belt for his pistol.

Haar Dush’vorcopa apparently didn’t like this.

Cody heard him growl, actually growl like Wolffe had done that one time, before turning from Cody and lifting his hand again.

He heard smacks, then grunts, then silence on the comms.

When the Sith started curling his hand inward, Cody charged again, trying to unload his pistol into the hut’uun. The Sith shifted his attention and stopped the shots mid-air. Cody didn’t let himself stop to think about how much that scared him, quickly grabbing the knife from his belt and trying to slash the other.

Just one injury. Let him cause one weakness before he and his vode died. He had no idea who he was pleading with, and he couldn’t find it in himself at the moment to care what power he should direct the prayer at.

Haar Dush’vorcopa dodged him with ease, black cloak moving like a sentient smoke cloud, and made sure to grab Cody’s knife arm.

Cody found himself quickly disarmed and thrown, rolling once again across the walkway, this time hitting his bucket on one of the handrail poles.

The Sith held his hand out, and a moment later his lightsaber was snapping back to life in his hand. His next advance started.

Cody started to get up, not sure why when he knew he was moving too slow, especially still out of breath from too many tumbles.

Then, a shot. In front of the Sith, causing him to pause so he wouldn’t walk into it.

This time, Cody was sure he heard the other sigh.

Haar Dush’vorcopa lifted his free hand and moved it. Cody heard the impact. And the debris hitting the floor.

The grunts and gasps filling his comm let him know it was Waxer who had tried to save him.

Haar Dush’vorcopa started closing his hand and Waxer’s gasps started getting more desperate.

Cody charged.

Then, he was on his back, arms pinned behind him by one hand and his lower body by the Sith’s own weight. He could feel the hum of the lightsaber on the back of his neck through his blacks.

Next his helmet was torn off. Did this Sith want to deny them all dignity?

Cody looked up what little he can, this time he was facing the rest of the room, so he could see his vode.

Waxer was still being held upright by the force in a new crater on the wall. Only a few of his men were visibly conscious. None managing to completely stand. Cody couldn’t see a single intact blaster, just disassembled debris on the floor.

Cody let out a sting of curses in Basic, Mando’a, and any other bits of languages that he had picked up. Cursing the Sith, telling him he’ll pay for this, threatening him, emptily, not to harm his vode. After a few moments, it devolved into cursing the force and existence in general.

He kept going until Haar Dush’vorcopa interrupted him.

“Shh, shh, it’s alright,” the sith said, practically purring despite the attempt at obviously faux comfort, “You’re doing beautifully and I’m so proud of you. But that’s enough now. It was cruel of them to make you fight me. You never could have won. It’s not your fault.”

That settled it. All Sith were insane. And the rogue ones were obviously even worse.

Cody swore again, more vehement than he thought he ever could, and as he watched Waxer struggle less and less for breath, he felt a few tears slip from his eyes as well.

He heard the monster holding him down hum inquisitively, like he was considering Cody’s other vode.

“Please,” he heard himself say without really meaning to, “please just let them go.”

The Sith was silent.

What was he doing?! Sith don’t negotiate.

“And what would you give, commander? To keep them safe?” Except apparently this one who was crazy enough. He heard Waxer take in a bit more air, though, so if negotiation was possible, he had to try.

“I… I don’t…” Cody racked his brain, but… “I don’t have anything to give. We’re property of the Republic. All our possessions are the Republic’s as well. We don’t own anything.”

Except their names, but that would either be useless or, if it was useful in some way for a Sith, that wasn’t something he would be willing to give.

“Come now, commander. Your actions at the battle of Juma 9 would make me think you smarter than this. You have skills. You have loyalty. Access. Armor.” The last was obviously thrown in at some odd attempt at humor.

“Those aren’t mine to give,” he replied truthfully.

Suddenly, he was flipped over, arms pinned underneath him. The Sith had one hand on his chest, the other lifted to hold up Waxer. The lightsaber was left floating near his neck, washing his vision in red light.

“Oh, you are smart, aren’t you? But more than that, I think you’re more bound than I ever was,” Haar Dush’vorcopa said, amusement and pity lacing his voice. Mirth in his smile.

Cody glanced at Waxer, still pinned to the wall down below, before turning back to search the monster’s face. What the kriff could have ever bound this being?

“Hmm… Including the three still at the door, there are fourty-nine souls you are begging me to spare, correct?” Cody heard himself growl at the reminder of how powerless he and his brothers were.

The Sith bent over a bit to look at him even closer. Cody couldn’t help but stare at the other’s eyes. The look in them reminded him of a Nexus playing with its food.

The staring contest lasted for a few moments of silence, enough for a satisfied smile, oddly polite for how hauntingly threatening it looked, to grow on the Sith’s face.

“You can give me time, commander. A day for each of them. Your men will leave the planet, no harm done to them if they go quietly. And you will stay here with me for fourty-nine days,” the Sith declared.

What the Kriff?!

“C-commander! Don’t! We’ll fi-fight him!” Waxer choked out from the wall, causing Cody to look down at him again.

His men needed him.

“I want proof that they at least get out of the planet’s gravity well unharmed.” He didn’t have reason to trust Haar Dush’vorcopa, but he didn’t have proof he couldn’t trust him. No one had made deals with him before, so who knew if he kept promises or not. He just showed up on battlefields, caused chaos, sometimes grabbed something, then left. Sometimes turning the tide in favor for the Republic, sometimes the CIS. Cody was pretty sure anyone who had ever gotten close enough to hear his voice, let alone held a conversation with him, was dead.

This was his best, only, chance to save his vode.

The lightsaber switched off, flying back into the black robes.

He heard a body drop to the floor, followed by heavy, but thankfully unencumbered, breathing.

“Excellent choice, commander,” the Sith purred openly this time, straightening up and extending a hand.

Cody took it.

The Sith pulled him up with little effort and made his way over to the closest stairs. Cody followed cautiously.

Most of his vode had managed to at least sit up, and enough were standing that they could take the others, who seemed to be completely unconscious, out.

“I don’t actually have any instruments that will let you see that, though. You can use your comm unit to confirm before they get out of range,” the sith explained casually as they reached the ground. His brothers all put a bit more distance between them and Haar Dush’vorcopa.

“Fine,” Cody agreed, he just wanted his vode out of here. Away from Haar Duch’vorcopa. They obviously weren’t going to beat him.

Haar Dush’vorcopa moved past his men to the doors and Cody followed a half-step behind, wanting to be there to be some sort of barrier between his vode and the man.

Not to mention that the Sith apparently wanted him alive, hopefully he could prevent any deaths by being in the way.

He heard them slowly follow, shuffling as some of his vode were more dragged than walked out.

The walk back was tense and quiet. Well, maybe his vode were quietly talking on comms, but Cody didn’t have a helmet at the moment. Speaking of…

“Someone inform Jag once we have reception that you’re all leaving,” Cody ordered calmly, taking care not to let any nerves bleed through his tone or posture.

“Yes, sir,” was the reluctant response after a few seconds of silence. His men were obviously not happy with this turn of events.

Haar Dush’vorcopa chuckled lightly in front of Cody. Cody glared in return.

“While your protectiveness is cute, you really don’t have to worry. So long as your dear commander follows the rules of the Archive, no harm shall befall him,” the Sith assured brightly.

“Archive? I didn’t see any records?” Kriff. Kriff Boil and his loud and cynical mouth.

“Indeed not. I keep that sort of thing further inside, being so close to the entrance might expose sensitive materials to the elements. Like sand, wind, sun, blaster fire,” the Sith joked, seemingly amused. Thank goodness.

Cody still glared over his shoulder and made a motion for his vode to shut up before they got killed.

Someone must have actually commed Jag because by the time they reached the surface again, because the man was standing with arms crossed, posture radiating displeasure, as Slice and Racket floated on stretchers nearby.

“Ah, yes. Don’t worry about them too much. They should wake up in about a day, probably even less, you clones were designed to be quite hardy, after all,” the Sith rambled, hood up now that they were out in the sun. Cody had to squint.

“Transport will be here in three minutes. Status?” Jag said bluntly to Cody, resolutely ignoring the cloaked man causing him so much displeasure. Medics. Too grouchy for common sense of hierarchy.

“Bumps and bruises, mainly. A few blaster grazes. A few with windpipes damaged,” Cody reported back.

Jag nodded before marching up to Haar Dush’vorcopa and, because why would any of the vode he was trying to save actually work on keeping themselves alive, pointed a finger right at the monster.

“I want him back without a scratch, you understand? In forty-nine days, we’ll be back here and if he’s in less than peak condition then you’ll have hell to pay.”

Jag had no more ability against the Sith than Cody, but somehow still managed to make his threat seem legitimate where Cody’s had not.

The monster gave a small bow in apparent deference.

“Of course, unless he breaks the rules, the only injuries he will receive will be ones he requests,” because that was a perfectly normal thing for a Sith to say, apparently, “I shall ensure he returns without harm otherwise.”

His men looked back at him as they boarded the transport, obviously torn. Cody kept his face calm and resolute.

Cody switched on his wrist comm as soon as the transport took off.

“Wooley. Report,” he ordered. He heard some muttered Mando’a swears before his vod answered.

“All good up here, hyperspace jump is coordinated, we have enough supplies to make it to the meetup point. As soon as the transport docks, we’ll be good to leave,” Wooley sounded tense from hiding his displeasure, Jag had obviously told the others the situation while he and his platoon were resurfacing.

He had only to wait a few more minutes.

“Everyone’s docked, commander,” Wooley informed him.

“Good,” Cody replied, absently chewing his bottom lip for a moment as he thought, “I expect you all to keep the things running while I’m away. Play nice with whoever they send to help out.”

That would be a good way to phrase it. An expectation for his men to keep going until he returned. An assumption that he would return. That this wasn’t to be treated differently from other missions or duties that took him away for a few days sometimes.

“Of course, commander,” there, see? Waxer actually sounded a bit calm.

“See you all in forty-nine. Commander out,” he declared, shutting off the comm.

He watched the signal die as his fleet left the comm’s range, definitely out of the gravity well, and only then did he let himself look up at the empty sky.

“Well, come along then. I’ll get you settled into your room with a rulebook. Dinner will be in a few hours. I’d advise you use the time to read what you can. We don’t want to have any punishments or accidents that might end with lost limbs, do we?” the Sith mused lightly, slinging an arm around Cody’s shoulders and leading him back into the dark tunnels.

Kriff. What exactly had he just gotten himself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also yell at me on Tumblr! the-writing-mill.tumblr.com
> 
> Mando'a:  
Suvari - understood  
Vode - siblings | singular is vod  
Haar Dush'vorcopa - The Nightmare | lit. the bad dream. Also, the word Haar (the) is very rare and archaic, here it's used emphatically


	3. The Guest Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very tired. And wanted to post something before classes start this week. Thus, I present you with: This Mess!

The Sith led him back through the tunnels, through the empty carved room, and back into the storage room/battlefield. Cody looked around to see some of the debris had already been cleaned up. He caught sight of the back end of a mouse droid before it disappeared behind another pallet of boxes.

He kept his guard up the entire walk, constantly aware of the arm around his shoulders until it dropped.

Cody heard the doors behind him close.

No turning back.

“Stay here,” Haar Dush’vorcopa said, far too casually for the situation, and walked off, weaving through the grid of boxes.

He returned a minute later with a box floating behind him and his hood down. The Sith continued past Cody, then beckoned him to follow.

Cody only hesitated a moment before complying. If he was going to be stuck here, in unfamiliar territory, with a kriffing Sith for forty-nine days, then he’d rather have… well, not a good relationship, that just wasn’t possible, but the least bad relationship achievable.

The Sith led him to the far side of the room, and gestured at a stool by a long, plain, and bare table.

Cody obeyed the implicit order and watched Haar Dush’vorcopa warily.

The man glanced over at Cody and chuckled as he put the box down on the table. Cody felt his hackles rise at the apparent taunt.

The man stepped towards Cody and stretched out his hand. Cody leaned back as far as he could without falling off his seat to the ground, because any interaction with a Sith was a bad idea at the worst of times. Physical interaction while he was alone, unarmed, and sans bucket was not happening.

“I only agreed to stay here. Nothing besides that,” he said, trying to subdue the snarl out of his tone.

“True. But no level of interaction was barred for either of us,” Haar Dush’vorcopa laughed, a smile growing on his face. Cody felt his stomach unsettle at the expression, “it’s just a medical scan, you don’t want to bleed out internally without knowing or anything like that, do you?”

Cody glared for only a moment, weighing his options, before relenting and sitting forward properly.

Haar Dush’vorcopa put his hand on Cody’s forehead, thumb and pinkie on his temples, other fingers going back into his hair. Cody closed his eyes reflexively as he felt… something roll through him. It felt like cold oil was being washed through him, completely through him, leaving behind an odd, heady feeling of energizing warmth. The foreign sensation was… not welcome; but it certainly wasn’t the unpleasantness or pain he’d expected.

“Some bumps and bruises. A minor concussion or almost-concussion depending on what you count. Likely from the lightning and pole interactions,” Haar Dush’vorcopa murmured. Cody opened his eyes as the hand pulled away.

The Sith opened the box and rifled through it. After a moment, he put a few vials and small jars down on the table, followed by a small plain metal bowl.

Cody watched, curious and concerned in equal parts, as the other man started putting bits of the different liquids in the bowl. After a bit, he smelled it and, seemingly satisfied, opened the two small jars and added bits of leaves and powder. Cody watched, fascinated, as the Sith gently swirled the concoction. Where the leaves moved through the soup, it started glowing, a simultaneously vibrant and subdued purple.

When the entire potion was glowing, the Sith held it out to Cody, who leaned back again.

“I didn’t agree to that either. What the kriff is it?” he demanded. Mysterious liquids were a big enough risk at 79s, let alone here.

“Health accelerant. Your medic seemed quite concerned, didn’t he? And I’d really rather have discussions with a fully cognizant version of you, after all,” the Sith said, a smile growing on his face again, words full of casual excitement. Cody wasn’t sure what to do with that.

The Sith pushed the bowl into his face.

Cody cautiously took the bowl, looking at the concoction up close. A few leaves were still floating through it, shriveling and dissolving, making it glow brighter. He took a slow breath, a little shaky, hopefully not enough for Haar Dush’vorcopa to notice, but enough to mentally rebuke himself for it, exhaled, and then lifted the bowl to his lips.

The drink tasted like smoke. Or rather, felt like he was swallowing dry ice, but warm. It had a flavor, but Cody couldn’t figure out any way to describe it, and while undeniably present, the smoke-swallowing feeling was far more prevalent.

When he had downed the entire concoction, he put the bowl back on the table and looked back at the Sith, who was still smiling at him with too many teeth.

“Right, let’s get you to your room. The droids should have it set up by now,” Haar Dush’vorcopa said, casually grabbing Cody’s arm and dragging him off his stool and over to a corner.

Part of the wall, which in no way looked like a door, opened to what appeared to be a turbolift. The Sith dragged him in and Cody tried his hardest to ignore the parts of him screaming to fight and get away as lights came up, the doors closed, and he felt the lift starting to move, trapping him alone in a small space with Haar Dush’vorcopa, moving to even further unknown territory.

Haar Dush’vorcopa was still smiling, hand on Cody’s arm.

The lift eventually stopped, and Cody was frankly impressed by how long it took. Just how big was this archive?

The door opened and Cody was dragged again. This time into a room with scale that rivaled the senate.

Black, gleaming stone shelves stretched as far as he could see. Obsidian? He was pretty that was what the rock was called. It was probably that. The floor looked pebbled, swirling colors forming a mosaic that Cody would think was made of gravel if his boots scattered it. Instead, as far as he could tell, the floor was actually smooth, a slight gleam revealing some sort of resinous coating. Despite the floating golden balls of light, he couldn’t see the ceiling or walls.

He looked back for a moment as he was dragged further into the stacks to see the turbolift was a steel column in the room, and the rows of shelves continued behind it as well.

Cody turned back to better keep up with the Sith’s casual but quick walking pace and let himself marvel for a moment for the careful designs etched into the ends of each shelf, as well as the lights, unexpectedly gentle, which illuminated more than they could otherwise because of the reflective shelves and floor. A few lights seemed to gather near them, following them and illuminating their path, while the others continued to wander the shelves, seemingly at random.

The number of books, holo, paper, and any other form imaginable, made Cody suspect that this place had more documents than the Jedi Archive, based on his one trip there. Cody was wondering about whether or not he had seen anywhere near the extent of either collection when they seemed to suddenly catch up to a wall. Numerous and reflective or not, the lights were too few and too soft to illuminate it until they were only three shelves away from the dull, dark grey rock.

A dark brown wood door opened as the Sith continued to drag him. Cody was mildly annoyed that he still couldn’t tell if these doors were opening and closing automatically or if Haar Dush’vorcopa was using the force.

They were now in a hallway, same dull dark grey rock for ceiling, walls, and floors, seemingly filled with only doors, dull black metal, and their keypads every few yards.

The Sith led him down the hall and turned left, dragging him through an identical hallway. They turned right, and a few doors were made of dark wood. Another turn left and the doors were all wood, and even further apart. Another left turn and the Sith stopped them a few doors down, producing a keycard from somewhere in his cloak and used it to unlock the door. The Sith tugged it open, so this door at least was manual, and gestured for Cody to enter.

He did so cautiously. The inside was… technically plain, Cody supposed, but far more than he was used to as a clone.

A real bed, with clean looking linens, centered on the back wall, next to a door, a large and well-cushioned chair in the corner, a tall dresser, the sort that Cody thought was called an armoire or something similar, on the right wall, and an empty bookshelf and large desk, with another, smaller and less cushioned, chair, on the left wall.

The desk also had his helmet on top of a ridiculously large book.

Cody instantly crossed to grab his helmet as soon as he saw it.

“That’s a copy of the rules, by the way,” Haar Dush’vorcopa said casually.

Cody aborted his movement of putting on his helmet to stare at the behemoth that was surely a joke, before he looked back to see the Sith leaning against the doorway, a far less toothy smile on his face. It didn’t seem like he was joking.

“You’re serious,” Cody couldn’t quite manage to make it a question.

“Quite. Follow those, and no unwanted harm shall come to you. Break them and… well, I’ll leave it to your imagination for now.” Now the smile was back to having too many teeth.

“It seems… like a bit of overkill for a library,” Cody tried. Haar Dush’vorcopa shrugged.

“There’s a lot that goes on here. We need a lot of rules. Fresher’s through there,” the Sith gestured to the other door, “I’ll come get you for dinner in an hour and a half.”

The Sith threw a key card at Cody and turned to leave.

“We?”

“Me, my masters, the other inhabitants here, the occasional scholar or researcher,” Haar Dush’vorcopa drawled, a lazy smirk on his face before he stepped out of the room.

“Wait.” The Sith paused and looked back, one eyebrow raised. Did he seriously just stop a Sith twice? Seemed like a foolish tempting of fate. Too late, “I need… I need supplies to clean my armor.”

The other eyebrow raised. Osik, too far. Probably had some kriffing rule in the kriffing dictionary against this or something and now he was going to die or worse-

“I’ll see what we have. If I don’t say anything at dinner, you’ll find supplies back here after it.” And with that declaration the Sith left the doorway, cloak billowing behind him, and the door closed of its own accord.

Kriffing force-users.

Cody stared for only a moment before going back to the desk and sitting down. He put his helmet next to him and stared at the cinderblock of a rulebook.

He was so kriffing screwed.

It wasn’t just a single Sith living here. The Ghost of Battles, Haar Dush’vorcopa, had masters. In the plural. There were other “inhabitants” and researchers; Cody didn’t really want to know what someone would research with a Sith. But he was going to have to find out. There was already so much information, he needed to get it back to the Republic.

He needed to survive this to do that though. He couldn’t handle this, he was just a clone and he was going to have to survive multiple Sith, the weakest of which could completely decimate an entire battalion without much effort. And sure, Haar Dush’vorcopa seemed interested in him, which was bad enough, but he had no guarantee that anyone else here would like him enough to keep him alive. And whoever those people were, they certainly hadn’t made any promises about keeping him alive, let alone conditionally unharmed and-

Wait.

Haar Dush’vorcopa had said he thought Cody was smart. Based on his actions at Juma 9. The Sith had known that he was a commander.

How much did the Sith know about him? How much of this was planned? If the point was to trap him here, then why?

Kriff. Kriff it all. He was beyond screwed.

Cody made himself take extra deep breaths.

Well, if Haar Dush’vorcopa was trying to play games with him, then his best bet was to learn the rules, right?

He was already at an information disadvantage. His goal now was to survive the next forty-nine days and get out with as much information as possible.

Damn the man for harming his brothers, their Jetii, anyways. If he thought he could play Cody in some unknown game, then Cody was going to play him back and take away as much information as he could.

He opened the book and settled in for a cram session.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to some talk on Tumblr (I leave anon on): the-writing-mill.tumblr.com


	4. The First Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have like... three group projects to work on today so this isn't getting another grammar look through. If you see something, say something
> 
> (we should all see Obi-Wan creeping on the poor commander and say stop, but alas, he shall not)

True to his word, the Sith returned an hour and a half later, sans cloak, revealing a long, four-paneled tunic that reached his knees, where Cody saw just a glimpse of pants before they were tucked into boots, and a cropped coat, more sleeves than anything else, on top. It was apparently another distraction technique. Cody couldn’t help but wonder what the point of it was.

“Shall we, Commander?” the Sith asked, snapping Cody out of his stupor.

Cody cautiously moved forward and took the offered arm. After a moment Haar Dush’vorcopa rearranged to what must have been a more proper position. Cody had no experience with this sort of thing to know what he was supposed to do.

So he did what he did know how to do, and followed orders.

He let Haar Dush’vorcopa lead him without struggle, through more hallways, which eventually shifted from closed doors to open archways, giving Cody a slightly better idea of what was down here.

A holo room, filled with columns of data books and sticks and multiple players. What was probably a communication room. Storage, storage, more storage. Gardens.

Cody did a double take when they passed the first garden, because there was zero light down here and those plants were completely foreign to him and lush. Another garden seemingly completely filled with fungus. More gardens. A study room. A lounge. A study space in a garden.

Eventually, they got to what was obviously a dining room. The walls seemed to be coated in bronzium, with simple carved shapes, and there are small sconces on the walls, bathing the room in warm light. The table was a simple polished wood rectangle, with twelve chairs around it, and the Sith, Darth Libri, as the rulebook named him the current executor of the archive (Cody hadn’t been sure how Sith names worked, if the Jedi had their own names or if the Sith just declared themselves and the Jedi used that. But of course the Jedi respected chosen names, he should have known that), led him to the chair at the right of the end chair.

The Sith sat down at the head chair. Right next to Cody. And now he couldn’t really ignore the fact that the Sith was staring at him, giving him a lazy smile, still with too many teeth.

Honestly, if the other man could just manage to tone that down, he could pass for a normal person.

“And just how, pray tell, are you settling into your new home for the next few weeks, commander? I did try to make sure you were in a room that didn’t bite.”

Well, until he opened his mouth, Cody supposed.

“Just what have you been drinking that results in rooms biting you?” Cody found himself involuntarily snarking after a few moments of Haar Dush’vorcopa just staring at him.

Bad move. Abort. Sass belonged with his vode, or any Jedi general that the 212th could get for a campaign, not around a Sith.

Haar Dush’vorcopa just laughed. Open-mouthed and with abandon. Yet oddly quiet.

Okay, maybe not doomed.

“Well, walls can do odd things, especially in old places like this, though I think I’ve come across more furniture that tries to injure me than walls, and none of them have ever seemed to care about how drunk I was…” the Sith trailed off.

Cody just stared, tense and wary, until a serving droid rolled in with four trays on its arms.

“Ah, FE-3, thank you,” Haar Dush’vorcopa said, Cody glanced back to see the too-many-toothed smile was back on the man’s face. Was that just his default expression?

FE-3 put a tray in front of him and one in front of the Sith, both with empty place sets, before continuing around to the Sith’s left side, depositing two trays of food and rolling out of the room.

“No voice box?” Cody asked. The droid hadn’t even responded to its owner thanking it. From the few times he’d been required at the senate and other political functions, he had assumed the Kaminoans’ expectation of droids being programmed to talk politely was normal.

“Nothing that complex moves rooms around here. Machines can’t be trusted that much,” the Sith said as he got up, taking Cody’s bowl as well as his own, and walked the two feet to start serving some sort of soup.

Haar Dush’vorcopa put a brothy looking liquid in front of him. Given the green, Cody suspected it was a vegetable soup. Light on the stomach. An appetizer.

Cody glanced up as some bread entered his field of vision and was put on the small plate beside the main plate. The Sith had a closed mouth smile on now, which was… not as much less off-putting than the toothy smile as Cody expected.

The eyes, he decided after a moment, were what made every expression unsettling. The eyes were a bit too satisfied, like a Nexus who had just finished bringing back a good kill to its den for its young. Cody found himself questioning if he was the prey or the kit.

He wasn’t sure which option was worse.

The Sith poured them some water and finally sat back down.

Cody waited for his captor to begin eating before daring to try the soup himself.

The Sith smiled at that.

It was quiet for about a minute, and Cody could feel the air grow more tense and awkward as he waited. The Sith had been… oddly polite, so far. There was far too little threatening for a Sith, even if some comments had been very uncomfortably casually macabre.

The worst part was that it all seemed fairly genuine. No hidden motives, per se, just inscrutable ones. Cody wasn’t sure he had a way to develop a strategy to survive the lack of malicious intent.

“So, Commander, what is your name?” That had not been the first question he’d expected.

“You don’t already know?” he shot back after a moment. So far, the Sith had actually seemed to enjoy sass and snark. Hadn’t punished Boil or Jag or Cody for back talking.

“No, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered asking. If I’m being rhetorical in my questioning, you’ll know, trust me. Why would I know your name?”

“Knew I was a commander. Knew about Juma 9. If you knew that before we had even talked, why wouldn’t you know my name?” Cody responded, decidedly drinking more soup as soon as he explained so Haar Dush’vorcopa would hopefully feel like it was his turn to talk.

“Hmm… So far you’re at least as smart as I hoped,” Cody had to work on not choking at that. He didn’t want any Sith to have any expectations of him. Ever. “But just because I read reports on the war, and therefore notice interesting things like Juma 9, or a clone quickly rising much higher than some in the GAR might like, does not mean that I’ve gotten to read your name,” the Sith explained.

“I’m CC-2224, sir. Surely that was in whatever reports you read.” Kriff. Did they have a mole? Did the CIS have a mole? Or was the Sith just talking about publicly available info? It’s not like he’d ever bothered to check to see what an average citizen could learn.

The Sith waved his answer off, “No, no. I don’t care about your designation. What’s your name?”

Cody carefully drank a large spoonful of soup, making sure to savor it, trying to buy time.

“I’m not sure I should be trusting a Sith with that, no offence,” he said steadily.

“Oh? And why not? I understood that it was what you have people call you. Do you think it’s wrong to tell it to someone not in the GAR?” the Sith pondered.

“No. But besides not being in the GAR, you’re also a Sith. You use force-hoodoo and don’t have morals about it. Not sure what you could do with a name,” Cody responded firmly. The Sith swallowed his mouthful of soup before chuckling, seemingly amused.

“Not much. Any force technique I’ve come across that required a name, and there are precious few, are able to have their results replicated far easier and better in other ways. A name is a nice thing to know for casual conversations and interactions, which we’ll likely have quite a few of, and legal documents, of which I hope we’ll have none,” the Sith rambled.

Cody finished the piece of bread he’d been gnawing on.

“Cody. Commander Cody,” he tried to keep his voice neutral.

“Libri, Darth Libri,” The Sith, Libri, responded, clearly amused in some way.

Libri stood up again and took away the used dishes, stacking them in an empty spot on one of the trays, before grabbing Cody’s plate and serving that too.

Cody wasn’t sure what to think about that. It was unusual, definitely, and a bit uncomfortable, the more he thought about it.

As the one most often in charge of the 212th, he’d been required at a few political functions, and some more upper-class but less professional military ones, and while he hadn’t been treated like a server or servant exactly, he had obviously been thought of as either decoration, unimportant, or something disdainful and unfortunately necessary. He was useful to the Republic, he was useful to them, but he wasn’t worth much outside of the battlefield. He understood that very well at those events.

That was how it was. How it was supposed to be.

This was completely new territory and he wasn’t sure how to respond.

He felt almost angry about it. Anxious. He knew how to be a good soldier. That should have been enough. He wasn’t supposed to have to deal with this sort of situation, so he wasn’t trained for anything like it. He had no idea how he was going to figure out what to do about the Sith’s behavior, including… being served.

Was it some sort of power play?

Maybe this was some weird way to display dominance? Was Darth Libri trying to say he was in charge of all of Cody’s provisions? That had already been obvious though…

Cody was roused out of his thoughts by the tinking sound of his plate being placed onto his tray.

It now had some small poultry bird on a bed of leaves, surrounded by a few other greens and vegetables and what looked like small berries, all covered in some sort of glaze.

Cody did what he could with the silverware to actually get the meat off of the bird’s bones. Why did people do this? As bland as GAR rations were, they were at least easy to eat. Making a challenge out of meals, gaining nutrition, seemed like an inefficient waste to him.

His dining companion seemed to have no such qualms and was relocating the dish to his mouth with ease.

Cody focused on his meal, glancing up once in a while to see the other man staring at him, still somehow oozing satisfaction even as he ate, carving his bird without looking.

Karking Sith.

When he was almost finished, and Cody only half-way done, Cody finally ventured to take another risk, another liberty that he still wasn’t sure wouldn’t get him decapitated or worse.

“Why?”

The Sith just tilted his head in question as he finished up the last bit of greens on his plate.

“Why what?”

Cody tightened his grip on his utensils.

“Why am I here?”

“We’re having dinner. Dinner happens in the dining room.”

Cody leveled a disappointed stare at the Sith that sent most shinies to shaking boots and apologies for offenses they couldn’t place.

Darth Libri just smirked back with too many teeth again.

Cody eventually gave up and went back to his food.

“You’re interesting,” was what the Sith said to break the silence.

Cody paused in his pursuit of the last bit of meat to look up and see Haar Dush’vorcopa in the exact same position, elbows on the table, hands propping up his chin, leaning forward just a little. Sharp grin that still had Cody wondering if he was next on the menu, eyes looking at him with the idea that they could see everything about him.

Somehow, looking back up this time, it was far more malevolent.

No, unhinged was a better word.

Maybe the eyes were just a little wider, or there was some Sith-spit going on that made Cody feel like the shadows were a bit deeper, the grin a bit more dangerous. It resulted in an image, evoked a feeling, that, if Cody had seen the man before him while patrolling a town the GAR was protecting, would have made him order a following detail of five of his stealthiest men with above-par aim.

“I don’t have too much left here that’s as interesting as you. Research projects, certainly, things to grow and record. But at this point I’ve collected most beings that I want to learn from, and the few researchers that come here…” Darth Libri scoffed, shaking his head “they lack imagination. No drive. No real intellectual pursuit or purpose.”

Cody didn’t think he had any of that either. But also, beings the Sith wanted to learn from?

“And the CIS, they send people that are utterly boring, and then worse, try to harm this archive. One room of the library alone is worth more than their and the Republic’s senate records combined! It’s not like I kept leaving because I like trudging through active war zones…” The Sith said, almost petulant.

“Could have fooled me,” Cody shot out dryly, barely keeping the rage from his voice. If the man didn’t want to go around killing his brothers, then why was he bothering?

The Sith waved him off, “well yes, they can be interesting, the strategies, the emotions, the chaos. All very powerful. But transporting whatever artifact, whatever piece of history or knowledge, is unnecessarily risky. What if it gets damaged? It’s not like it wants to be stored in the middle of a bunch of trenches.”

“Then perhaps you could wait until the battle finished to go collect it instead of killing us,” Cody said, anger finally flaring into an icy tone.

The Sith finally sat up straight, cocking his head side to side, as though looking at him anew.

“I haven’t killed you, though. And I don’t want to! You’re too interesting. I haven’t gotten to interact with someone so new and intriguing for… years! You must have interesting stories, and feelings, you’re the Marshall Commander of a systems army, virtually always in charge of an entire battalion, you lead multiple missions, and the non-Jedi, non-clones in the army obviously hate you but can’t get rid of you. And the little bit I’ve gotten to hear clones speak, you obviously all value Jedi, but your battalion, that whole army, can’t keep a front-line Jedi general for more than a month before they die, so you must have interesting thoughts about that,” Haar Dush’vorcopa rambled.

Cody slowly put his knife and fork down, forcing himself to wrench his hands out of their iron grips at the reminder of how many of their Jetii had died on his battlefields.

Haar Dush’vorcopa stopped and just stared at him, wide-eyed for a second before his grin caught up to him.

“See? It’s all very interesting!”

“Is that all you care about? Collecting things you think are interesting?” Cody wanted to rip the threat’s throat out.

“I suppose… well, I like to keep things orderly. And respectful when possible. But I suppose the knowledge, the freedom, takes priority and does drive most of what I do. You really are observant, and you know how to use it! That’s quite rare, in my experience,” Haar Dush’vorcopa praised, clearly not caring about any murderous intent Cody was letting out, as he grabbed the plate off of Cody’s tray and put it with the first dishes.

Cody continued to glare as he set a small saucer down at both their place-settings before refilling Cody’s glass.

Cody glanced at the fruit-covered… tart? He was pretty sure that’s what it was called… Before looking back up at the now sitting Haar Dush’vorcopa and deciding he wasn’t quite ready to drop this. Both for his anger and information’s sake.

“And why the kriff do you think knowledge is the same thing as freedom?” he demanded.

The Sith looked taken aback.

“Well… it is. Freedom is having options that you can pick from. Knowledge is the only way to find or create more options. The more you know, the more free you are, and vice versa,” the Sith explained, finally seeming a little less unhinged. It reminded Cody to wrangle his anger down into a controlled state.

“Then why aren’t my brothers and I free to not die even though we know we don’t want to and don’t have to?” he asked, almost sarcastic.

“Because you’re not applying your knowledge. You know your desires, your feelings, a few possibilities. But you don’t seem to know the paths to get there,” the Sith replied easily.

“Or maybe it’s because when we get orders, we have to follow them, and you can only prepare so much, especially when Sith decide to randomly drop in and start massacring your side,” Cody bit back.

The Sith hummed, as though in thought. Cody picked up the probably-a-tart-thing and started nibbling. It was almost disgusting in how sweet it was.

“First of all, I’ve never killed on a battlefield where I wasn’t shot at first. I actually kill less than half the time I show up. The other times, no one notices me,” the Sith shrugged, “second of all, the problem, then, is that you and your brothers don’t know they can refuse to fight.”

Cody felt his nose scrunch in disgust at the suggestion, “we are members of the GAR. The Republic tells us to fight. We fight. They tell us to defend. We defend. It’s not a choice. It’s duty.”

“You have to choose duty. And if you choose to fight, then your issue sounds to me like you don’t know how to fight without dying.”

Cody took a big bite out of his meal instead of responding.

The Sith hummed, apparently pleased.

They finished the rest of their meal in silence, Cody glaring and the other smiling.

FE-3 came back and took the trays.

The Sith stood.

“Well, do you feel up to a bit of a tour tonight or shall we save it all for tomorrow?” he asked, voice still casual. Kriffin’ Sith didn’t give a damn. Go figure.

Fine. Fine. Cody was supposed to use the Sith for information. He needed to put aside any anger, pride, discomfort. His goal was to get as much information for the Republic as possible.

“A tour,” he said, standing up as well.

And then he was falling.

He felt the Sith catch him, hands hooked under his arms, the rest of him seemingly pressed up against Cody’s back. He smelled like… well, the archive mainly, books and ink and stone. But more.

Cody only needed half a second to start struggling.

The Sith easily man-handled him back into his chair, leaning over him.

“Cody, did you nap while in your room?” What?

“What? No. I didn’t need to,” Why would the Sith ask that?

“Ah, I see. We’ll just do the whole tour tomorrow, then, you desperately need sleep,” the Sith explained, reaching towards Cody.

Cody leaned back.

“What the kriff does that mean? What did you do to me?!” Cody demanded. The Sith halted his reach.

“You do remember the first aid you drank earlier, yes?” Haar Dush’vorcopa asked, his smile beginning to grow on his face again.

“You said that was-,” Cody began, angry and afraid now.

“A health accelerant, yes. And what did you think that meant?” The Sith asked, Cody startled at the question, “it’s accelerating your healing processes for a bit. That takes a lot of energy. I’m surprised you didn’t notice until now.”

Excuse him, he was a bit too busy trying to survive a Sith and figure out what the kriff was going on, rather than figure out how extra tired he was after a battle.

“Hm, nothing for it, then, tour in the morning.”

And with that, the Sith picked him up, bridal style, as he’d seen someone on the holonet call it, and had him half way out the room before Cody processed what was going on.

Cody immediately started pushing against an unyielding chest.

“Put me down, damn it! I can walk!” he demanded.

“No you can’t.” And that was apparently the end of the argument.

Cody gave up on trying to get away after one hallway, now that he was paying attention, he really was too tired and worn out. Not enough he couldn’t walk himself back. But enough that he knew he wouldn’t be able to physically pry himself away from the Sith.

Instead, he grumbled out insults under his breath. His captor laughed at some of the more colorful and creative ones.

The Sith didn’t put him down until they were back in Cody’s room, placing him on the bed. The Sith walked over to the dresser-armoire-thing and opened one of the lower drawers, quickly pulling out what Cody supposed were sleep-clothes.

He put them beside Cody on the bed and then reached towards the side clasp on Cody’s chest plate.

Cody pushed him back, which ended up being more of the Sith being pushed an inch straighter and him pushing himself down back onto his elbows.

“I can undress myself, Darth,” he hissed.

The Sith backed away after a moment, hands raised in unconvincing surrender and a full smile on his face again.

“Libri, please. You’ve let yourself be bound enough without putting yourself beneath me,” Haar Dush’vorcopa said as Cody pushed himself back up to sitting.

He just glared until the Sith put his hands down, gave a small nod, and exited the room.

Cody took in a few deep breaths, trying to control his breathing.

Everything was FUBAR, but that was fine, it wasn’t like he hadn’t handled stressful situations before…

But nothing like this.

Cody dropped his head into his hands and tried deep breaths again.

He could handle this. He had to.

Cody glanced at the clothes beside him, then over his shoulder at the book he had only gotten a quarter of the way through.

He needed all the information he could get. It didn’t matter how tired he was.

Cody stood up, then everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to come yell/ask more questions on Tumblr: the-writing-mill.tumblr.com


	5. The First Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody wakes up. He thinks this entire situation is a pain in the neck (story of his life, honestly), but like everything else painful, he's determined to get through it. No matter how many panic and anxiety attacks he seems two steps from indulging in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm giving up. This is 3000 words. I am out of milage for Cody being paranoid and having dynamic yet consistent emotions. So we're stopping here and I will recharge and write a lunch where Cody gets creeped out on a night I have more charge. For now, enjoy this!

Cody slowly came back into consciousness, becoming aware of his existence piece by piece. Including, eventually, that his neck was very stiff, and that one side was pressing up against something hard. His armor.

Cody peeled his eyes open to see the wall with the fresher doors and the dresser sideways in his vision. He had passed out onto the floor. Fantastic. Just what he needed. He hoped he hadn’t gotten a concussion. That would be just another energy pack in the ammo kit that he didn’t want to deal with.

Cody pushed himself up so that he was sitting against the side of the bed and rubbed his neck, wincing.

The room didn’t tilt or anything, though, so his head was probably fine. He should still keep mindful of it, though.

Cody made himself stand and enter the fresher, Force knew he needed it. The fresher itself, like the bedroom, was simple. Plain but a nice quality and way more luxurious and spacious than Cody was used to getting. He was a bit surprised to see that the shower was fitted as both a water shower and sonic. There had been nothing but rocks and sand on the surface of this planet. A water shower seemed a very unnecessary waste.

There was also a cabinet set into the wall besides the mirror. It had a small collection of basic toiletries on its middle shelf. The top had towels. The bottom one, however, was full of cleaning supplies.

Cody quickly relieved himself and washed up before taking off all the different hard plates and laying them methodically on the sink counter. He had to pile some of them on top of each other to have enough room to actually clean. He looked through all the different cleaning products, sometimes having to take a few moments to figure what it was because the label wasn’t in a language he knew. Once he had figured out enough, he set to cleaning.

* * *

He had just set down the last piece, his left arm band, to dry when he heard the door open and something start to move around his room. Cody quickly slipped on his chest armor and belt before carefully approaching the side of the fresher door.

Darth Libri? Perhaps. Maybe one of the masters that had been mentioned.

There’d been no announcement, though. No dramatics that he associated with Sith. Was someone already trying to kill him? Cody slowly brought a small vibroblade out of one of his belt pouches, one of the few weapons he had left since he’d lost his blasters.

If it was a Sith trying to kill him, that wouldn’t help. Perhaps his best bet was to stay in the fresher, technically hidden. If it was Sith though, they’d know he was here anyways. And if it was someone sent to check on him and he didn’t seem to be here, he might be seen as trying to escape, which would jeopardize his vode.

Cody hid the vibroblade behind his leg, took a deep breath, and opened the fresher door, quickly dodging out and to the side as he frantically searched the room for the threat.

FE-3 was rolling out the door into the hallway. Cody glanced over to where the droid (could he even call it a droid? It seemed to be missing most of the intelligent software that made droids… droids) had been. There was a tray of food on the desk.

Cody sighed at the sight. He’d gotten prepared for a fight and put on damp armor for nothing. Still, better safe than dead. He went back into the fresher and put his armor back to dry out properly.

He sat down at the desk to take a proper look at the tray. There were two mugs, one with what Cody thought was probably tea, the other with what was unmistakably caf. There was a small plate of fruit, and Cody was seriously starting to wonder if this world was as barren and desert filled as it had seemed when they landed yesterday, toast, and something that looked like it should be an egg in shape but was blue.

At least he didn’t have to worry about manners now. Libri had eaten like he was at a royal feast last night and Cody was pretty certain that the only reason he hadn’t embarrassed himself was because Libri served small, well defined courses that had few choices of utensils.

Cody reached for the caf and paused when he noticed the small piece of flimsi that had been tucked under the mugs by its top corners.

_Cody,_

_I do hope that your first night here was restful, although it should improve regardless. Most people need to take a night or so to find comfortable sleep positions, as I understand it._

_I will be by later this morning to start the tour, unless I have overestimated clone soldiers’ abilities, in which case I may ask you to let me collect biological data while we wait for your body to finish recovering from yesterday._

_Libri_

Cody stared at the short note for a moment before starting to flip it between his fingers, thinking.

Haar Dush’vorcopa, Darth Libri, so far was… not what Cody had expected, by and large. Certainly, he was not quite right in the head, all too eager to resort to violence, and had the dark and dramatic aesthetic down. But there was a lack of malice and sadism and destructive desires so far that was quite foreign to Cody’s experiences with Sith. So far. He couldn’t assume Darth Libri wasn’t just acting. Waiting for Cody to lower his guard.

If he always spoke and wrote things like this, though, then Cody was pretty sure he would have no trouble keeping his guard up.

The note itself… Cody had to wonder, with the first two lines, if he was under watch and Haar Dush’vorcopa was teasing him. Or warning him? Kriff. Had the Sith just threatened him to sleep in the bedding provided or else?

The second bit could be the follow-up to any threat the first part contained, Cody supposed as he started eating. If Cody didn’t follow directions, didn’t sleep and rest where Darth Libri put him, then he’d be experimented on.

Or maybe Darth Libri hadn’t been trying to be threatening with the note and everything he said yesterday and was instead just creepy by nature.

Maybe. Too little information to figure anything out. He’d play it safe regardless.

He knew too little right now, but he knew more than he had when he made the deal. Libri liked to play host. He had multiple masters that were completely unknown variables, but Cody knew they existed now. Knew to be cautious and vigilant for them and the other inhabitants Libri had alluded to. He knew that Libri didn’t have much AI roaming around and liked it that way.

He knew that he did not understand Libri. Didn’t have any clue what his motives were, what to expect, had no idea how steady his temperament was, if what he had already seen was most of its variance or only small pieces. Hells, so far he didn’t even understand what the man meant half the time.

Last night in particular… right before he had left Cody alone to fall unconscious, Libri had said something about Cody not being supposed to put himself beneath Libri. Libri had said a fair amount of nonsense and weirdness, most of it creepy, but that had been just nonsensical politeness. He was pretty sure.

As far as Cody could remember, though, it had sounded like Libri had meant it.

Cody stared down at his empty plates, like they might have an answer that made Libri make any more sense. But they were, unfortunately, just plates. And they could be as perfect as possible at being plates and they still wouldn’t be able to solve Cody’s problems.

Cody was as perfect at being a vod, a soldier, a marshal commander, as possible and he still couldn’t solve his problems either.

Cody closed his eyes and indulged in one moment of not-quite-despair, to acknowledge how out of his league he was, and then went back to the fresher to put his armor back on.

He was doomed to being underprepared. That didn’t mean he had to be completely unprepared. Quite the opposite. It meant he should be as prepared as possible. Cody put on every piece of armor methodically, feeling lighter as each piece’s solid, familiar weight was put back on. In his armor, he knew exactly what he was capable of and exactly what sort of threats he could handle.

To further prepare, of course, he went back to the desk, slid the tray aside, and pulled the rule book back towards him and opened it, settling down to study again.

* * *

True to the note, Libri showed up a few hours later. Cody had managed to get a little over half-way through the rules.

Libri opened the door almost silently. Almost. Cody wasn’t one of the best soldiers the galaxy had ever seen, a vod, for nothing. He turned as he heard the door open and watched Libri step in and stop a step after the door. He was in an outfit that looked almost like a black version of traditional Jedi robes, except for the low vee of his collar going half-way down his chest, and the translucent shimmering red sleeves, cut to leave Libri’s shoulders out in the open, tucked into dark metallic vambraces that seemed to have some sort of amber-colored etching in them, in some pattern too detailed for Cody to see from across the room.

Libri watched him back, looking him up and down, seeming to deflate a bit at some unknowable disappointment that Cody’s very existence was apparently responsible for this morning.

“So, what do you say, commander? Do you feel up to a tour this morning?” Darth Libri asked, picking himself up with another too-sharp grin.

Cody stared for a moment, rolling a few different answers around in his head before responding cautiously, “I am perfectly capable of that, yes.”

Libri’s expression didn’t change as he tilted his head, although it somehow managed to become much more intense, much more dangerous.

“And how did you find breakfast? If there’s anything that wasn’t to your taste, please, let me know,” Libri continued. Cody couldn’t help but give the tray a glance. Had he missed something on it? In the food? Why ask about the breakfast?

Cody glanced back to see that Haar Dush’vorcopa was waiting for an answer, “It was fine, I think. I’m afraid I don’t have much of a tongue, not for taste at least. That sort of thing tends to be bad for morale.”

“Hmm… I’ll make sure to vary it over the next few days. Feel free to tell me what you like best,” Darth Libri said, perking up a bit and crossing the room over to the desk and glancing down at the brick of a rulebook, “well, you’ve certainly gotten far in that. Certainly far enough for seeing most of the archive. Come,” Libri said, putting a hand on Cody’s shoulder gently for a moment before removing it.

Cody obeyed the implicit order and stood up with the hand as he internally groaned at the idea of figuring out what the right answers to breakfast preferences were.

He tried to follow Libri, a half step behind, slightly to the right, as he was used to following those in charge, but the Sith put an arm around his waist and dragged him forward as they entered the hall, forcing Cody to walk beside him. So Haar Dush’vorcopa didn’t want Cody at his back. That was good information, if almost expected. The arm stayed and Cody decided it wasn’t a fight he was willing to have at this point. The more docile and cooperative he seemed, the more likely Haar Dush’vorcopa was to lower his guard and let some things slip.

They made their way down the hallway, which was still the same dull black metal with dark wood that Cody had seen yesterday, although now he had enough time to really look at them and see they all had some carved work done on them. There were also bits of bronzium inlaid in parts of the graphic designs.

“This whole area is residential. You’re in one of the newer parts, of course, as the inlaid work can tell you. If you go further back into the older areas,” Darth Libri explained, gesturing behind them. Cody stayed beside him despite finally getting the arm off of his waist, “the bronzium becomes much more run down, and the artwork is obviously from earlier periods.”

Cody had no idea how old the patterns looked in the hallway they were in or turning down, let alone what older styles of those types of patterns would look like.

Haar Dush’vorcopa guided them back to the hallways that had wooden doors and metal doors, and Cody had enough of himself together to both rememorize the path and look around to see where others branched off. The distances weren’t quite right for a grid, despite all of the right angles. Not the worst place to try to navigate, though, certainly not as bad as a few canyon-set campaigns he’d been on.

“This hallway has a few guards’ rooms, as well as rooms for their theoretical charges,” Libri continued, gesturing at the metal doors when he said charges, “they’ve largely been repurposed for less troublesome residents or storage. Your key card will let you enter the ones you’re allowed to, of course. And no penalty if you mistake a door and try to use the card on it. That would fall under omittable offenses type aurek. Any attempts to enter somewhere you’re not supposed to be after that… well, I’m sure you’ve read enough that I don’t need to go through _all_ of the possibilities,” Haar Dush’vorcopa said, letting another unsettling grin grow on his face.

It matched the threat, in Cody’s opinion. He hadn’t gotten to all of the consequences for breaking rules. The book seemed to be saving them mostly for the end. What he had read was enough that he had already decided that breaking any rule about what he was allowed access to was not going to be worth the risk. The point was to get information. As much as he could, and any information would be more than they had had before. Risking his ability to bring back any information was not worth it.

They moved into the hallways that were all metal.

“These are mainly miscellaneous things that benefitted from being near residents. Ritual rooms and a few less volatile projects that still needed some sort of control or containment. You won’t really have access to anything around here that’s still active or useful. It would probably just use you and then I’d have to clean up quite… vigorously, shall we say? And I really don’t want to have to do that to you,” Libri said, looking over at him with an amused glint in his eye. Cody kept himself moving without hesitation, even as he internally shivered at the idea of any of the rules involving amalgamations coming into play during his hopefully-still-temporary stay here.

Haar Dush’vorcopa led them through even more hallways until they hit an area that looked familiar. After a moment Cody recognized the communication room among all of the storage facilities. Libri had them pass through without commenting. Apparently, a possible chance for Cody to contact his vode wasn’t worth talking about.

Instead, Darth Libri took him through every single open-air room. Or, at least, all of the ones Cody had seen yesterday and then some.

Haar Dush’vorcopa took far more time to explain the different themes of each room. How they operated, how all the garden rooms were full of successful experiments or byproducts that had survived. Darth Libri was sometimes very vague as to what the experiments were and who had done them.

Cody could tell that a few times the information was withheld to try to get a reaction out of him. He didn’t show anything externally, except a few annoyed bucket tilts that a brother would have read as an exaggerated “really?” but probably meant nothing to Darth Libri. He had no idea how much the force revealed to the Sith beside him the few times the implications jarred him internally.

The study areas were, as far as Darth Libri was willing to tell him, just study areas. There were also more texts of various formats in these rooms, usually referring to the plants or their experiments if it was a mixed room. Libri also showed him the bits of almost-standardization for the logic of where the extra tables and chairs and other extra bits were usually stored in those rooms.

The garden rooms actually had standardized locations and sizes for their tool sheds, even if the contents were much more variable.

By the time they reached the area with the dining room, Cody had gathered more information than the Republic had collected in the past few months, plus the barely extant report from General Vos. And he had zero ideas on how to use it in a military setting beyond telling the rest of GAR to be prepared for bio attacks. Of the unusual and Sithly (which meant the Force, so it was unusual already and therefore redundant to say unusual) variety.

Haar Dush’vorcopa guided him to the same chair as last time and Cody acquiesced again, resulting in another toothy grin that made Cody wish he had more than a small vibroblade in one boot, his miniature emergency blaster in the other.

Comply. Set up a routine and veneer of non-threatening behavior. Make the Sith lower his guard.

Maybe think about how nice the blaster was and what good taste in weapons the Naboo senator had, to have recommended it to Organa as a gift for him. That might make him relax.

Lunch was some sort of rice dish, with a few things mixed into the rice that, besides a few pieces of mushroom, were completely unidentifiable to Cody, and a salad. Water to drink. With all those gardens, plus the liberal use of water, Cody really had no idea how Libri was running everything if they were still on the same sandy hell Cody had landed in. Perhaps that could be a way to actually weaken Haar Dush’vorcopa, if Cody could get the intel.


	6. The Tour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody finally gets shown the reference desk. And gets creeped out. And exasperated, because this is all way more trouble than what's he's paid to handle (which is nothing).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy May the 4th! Y'all get an update as a treat!

“So, what are your thoughts so far?” Haar Duch’vorcopa asked, finally breaking the silence.

Cody had been eating while watching the man warily. Darth Libri had been looking at him as well, but smiling, almost absently. It was another creepy thing that kept Cody on edge. And that was before he even took into account that besides smiling at him, Haar Dush’vorcopa had seemed to be _studying_ him.

Cody finished chewing his bite of salad, trying to think through the question, before answering.

“I can’t say I have much experience with places like this,” he began, and Libri let out a small chuckle at that, though Cody couldn’t quite figure out why. At least the sound didn’t seem malicious, “it seems impressive. Quite big, lots of capacity for people studying.”

And since there was so much to study, Cody couldn’t help but exasperatedly wonder why Haar Dush’vorcopa was still studying _him_, smile still plastered on. No- it had… softened a bit.

“It’s the work of many, many lives here. It can guide many people to many different places. If you let yourself grow comfortable enough to take advantage of what it offers, then you may find it lets you go places beyond what you ever imagined for yourself,” Libri said, eyes taking on a brighter, crazier glint than the casual off-kilter look they had had before.

“I think, uh… I’ll try to avoid that, for the most part. I never imagined getting into an amalgamation incident before and I think I’ll continue to do my best to avoid that,” Cody responded, a bit trepid in tone even as he mentally noped out.

Hopefully Haar Dush’vorcopa wouldn’t take that poorly.

The man stared at Cody for a few seconds, not even his expression moving, before bursting into cacophonous laughter.

“True, true. You would have quite limited options after that, as much fun as I would have studying a fresh hybridization,” Darth Libri said, voice trailing a bit as he apparently pondered the idea of getting to experiment on his “guest” as an amalgamation. Cody steeled himself, reminded himself that he would have to play nice like he was at another stupid political thing and separated from his brothers on a bad battlefield at the same time. He had to get used to this quickly if he wanted to make it to the end of this deal.

Darth Libri continued before Cody could come up with a response, “still. Those sorts of things are quite easy to avoid if you have a basic amount of sense. It should be quite easy for you, so you really should make full use of the archive while you’re here.”

“Right,” Cody agreed with tentatively, “I don’t quite recall research projects being part of our deal, though.”

“Indeed not! But so long as you’re surrounded by so much knowledge, there’s no reason to not use it!” Haar Duch’vorcopa continued enthusiastically, “and you will need something to do after I show you everything, you won’t be with me all the time, after all.”

That was a relief to hear, at least.

“I appreciate the offer, although I’m not sure how much use I can get out of Sith texts. I can’t exactly shoot lightning, or learn how,” Cody replied diplomatically. At least there had been something that came out of having to attend political things for his army’s non-existent Jedi.

“Well, you could try. There would probably be things for you to use in those texts. And other Sith texts that you could definitely use. But the archive has so much beyond that. Virtually any subject you want to study while you’re here is possible!” Haar Duch’vorcopa rambled, clearly passionate about the vastness of the collection in the archive, “and there’s certainly more than enough for you to learn about while you’re here that has nothing to do with Sith matters, or even the force. And most of those texts have almost no price at all that may complicate such short studies!”

Cody couldn’t help but narrow his eyes, worried, at one word in there.

“Price?” he asked before the Sith could finish taking a breath in and continuing. Haar Duch’vorcopa paused, stilling before seeming to calm down. Cody felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle, making him want to put his helmet back on, or at least glance at it beside him. He refused to give into the temptation.

“Nothing comes without a price, commander,” Darth Libri said, sounding and looking much saner than he had since Cody had first charged him yesterday. The intensity of Libri’s… everything, voice, expression, very presence, was frightening. It felt controlled, tamed. Hidden. Like a viper hiding itself in grass, waiting for the prey it knew would come.

Cody decided that this was a much more dangerous version of Darth Libri than his more unhinged moments.

“Thankfully,” Haar Duch’vorcopa said, standing to start collecting the dishes they had finished, breaking off Cody’s prey-like wary stupor, “you have already paid quite the price to be here. So, there’s quite a bit of information here that won’t cost you much of anything else at all.”

Cody leaned back as the Sith took his dishes and put them back on the tray.

“That’s… good. I suppose I’ll have to figure out something I want to study here, then,” Cody replied, slow and cautious.

The smile Haar Duch’vorcopa gave him in return was too toothy, a little unsettling, and missing that tightly controlled intensity from, making Cody internally sigh in relief.

* * *

Once FE-3 took away all of their dishes, Haar Dush’vorcopa stood and offered his arm to Cody. Cody stood and accepted it, having seen this behavior at the senate before, still wary internally.

Libri led them down more hallways, filled with artwork and architecture that he explained to Cody. Not much of it made terrible sense to him, referencing eras and groups and art terms that he was unfamiliar with, but sometimes Haar Dush’vorcopa would give a quick summary off a story depicted on a mural and that was understandable. Even if most of the stories were gory and steeped in Sith bias.

Although there were a few stories where a Sith teamed up with a Jedi. Those were unexpected and, Cody suspected, probably the more embellished myths.

They eventually stopped at a familiar looking set of dark brown doors. Except these were set into the side of the hallway, not the end, and had a matching set on the other side of the hallway.

Haar Dush’vorcopa opened the doors, Cody still couldn’t tell if it was automatic or the force, and led them into what seemed to be the first large room he had seen the day before, the vast space glistening in low, soft, floating light.

“This, as you might have guessed, is one of the main libraries. The collection in here is mainly tame, relatively speaking, and not terrible rare. Or the knowledge isn’t, at least,” Libri said, gesturing at the expanse of shelves and leading them further in. Cody could identify the turbolift in the dim light now that they had moved a bit further in, “You’ll likely be spending most of your time in this room or its siblings.”

Libri showed him an information port next. Reference port. Terminal. Cody wasn’t quite sure what to call it. But it had a searchable list of everything in this library, as well as a map of the it. Libri used the map to point out the two main ports, which could apparently also search for items in the “other libraries”.

Cody couldn’t quite imagine what else could be in this archive that would need another library, let alone multiple more. There was already so much knowledge just in this one. But then again, Darth Libri had said that the archive was the work of many people over many lifetimes. Cody supposed that the galaxy was big enough that there could be more information collected, although the collection was probably quite disparate and vague in purpose at that point. Perhaps there were also a number of older works? Held in older, bulkier formats?

Cody mentally shook himself out of his wondering as Libri led him around to a few different spaces in the library. There were a lot of different types of spaces to study and work in the library, with various types of furniture and furniture arraignments. Most of them made sense to Cody, seemed usable. Some just confused him.

Regardless of how much or little sense this place made at any given moment, Haar Dush’vorcopa just led Cody on, letting his arm go sometimes to gesture or fiddle with something or demonstrate, but he would quickly grab Cody’s arm again, keeping him close.

They eventually, after about an hour, by Cody’s guess, made it across the library to another set of dark brown doors.

They went through those doors, straight through another hallway, and in through another set of identical doors. Which led to an identical looking library. Cody could even see another turbolift. He internally groaned at the realization that this archive was going to be even harder to navigate than he thought.

Haar Dush’vorcopa looked over at him, growing a gleeful little addition to his usual absently unsettling smile. Kriffing force users, Cody thought, hoping the man would feel his disapproval through his vaunted force senses.

The sith’s expression didn’t change as he led Cody throught this library, commenting on general differences between what was in this library versus the one from before. Cody absently filed them away. It seemed that it was mainly that there were different sections, different subjects in the rooms.

They got through that library much quicker than the other, Haar Dush’vorcopa only pausing quickly to point out a few terminals and workspaces without feeling the need to actually show them to Cody again. They didn’t even make it to the halfway point before Darth Libri turned them up and moved them further back into the library before turning them back towards the side they had entered from. They came to another door, which looked the exact same as all the other library doors. Which both made sense and meant that Cody was going to have an even harder time navigating than he thought before.

Haar Dush’vorcopa led them through the first library again even quicker than he had the second, Cody actually had to speed walk, almost trot, to keep up. Cody couldn’t definitively guess if the Sith was using the force or actually just decided to half-run across the library.

Regardless, Cody got pulled along, armored legs and feet clanking like a Seppie, practically, while Haar Dush’vorcopa seemed to smoothly float along.

They cross the first library, out another set of dark wood doors, through another set into yet another expansive library. Cody takes a deep, disappointed breath in as he accepts that one of his challenges for the next forty-eight days will be just avoiding getting lost.

Darth Libri mercifully stops them a few steps into this library, close enough that Cody can notice the light from the hallway decrease as the doors close, plunging them back into the dim lighting that all the libraries seem to be kept in.

After another few minutes rambling of the types of subject in this library, Libri grabbed Cody’s arm again and starts walking them down the library, next to the wall this time.

They made their way along the wall, passing many desks clearly designed to read multiple things side by side, a few bookshelves, a door once in a while, and then a few display cases that piqued Cody’s interest enough that he made a note to go back and figure out what they were displaying when he wasn’t under as much surveillance.

Cody found that he felt a bit more sure footed against the wall. It felt better moored, more navigable, more… real in a sense. A lot of the libraries and the other rooms he seen had felt somehow removed from reality, like an extremely confusing dream. The mundane looking dull stone wall and clear structure was regular enough that it made him relief.

He was so kriffed if he had to survive forty-eight more days of this.

They got to the corner of this library and Darth Libri tugged him to turn the corner, instead of using the door back into the hallway a few meters back. Cody narrowed his eyes at the apparent inefficiency but went along without resistance or comment. Perhaps they were going to another door to _another_ library.

Haar Dush’vorcopa glanced at him, eyes glinting in amusement, and Cody strongly suspected that the man had gotten some inkling of his thoughts through the force. He decisively kept his mouth shut, even as the temptation to sass back at the man grew.

Libri’s expression dimmed a second later, into what might have passed for a pout if the Sith would have ever been capable of an expression that didn’t remind Cody of hostile fauna twisted into uncanniness in a nightmare.

They eventually got to another door on their new wall and it opened as Haar Dush’vorcopa led them through it into yet another hallway.

They made their way through another somewhat mazelike sections of hallway, this time with very few doors, to the point that Cody suspected there were doors that were just hidden.

Eventually, there were more doors, which started to look more familiar. Given the general directions they had been going in, if Cody’s sense of that had been even somewhat accurate, then he was pretty sure that they were back in the “residential wing” as it were.

They went through a few hallways that Cody knew he had been taken through before and then more that he hadn’t been. He was pretty sure he could find his way here from his room, though. The next door he was tugged through led to what seemed like a lounge area. Like a rec room on a ship, but with better padding and much older things. And dust.

Amenities, Cody vaguely registered in the back of his head as he got tugged from room to room with quick explanations that trailed off into lapses of what Cody could do in them even quicker, Haar Dush’vorcopa was showing him the amenities.

At least the Sith had abandoned hooking arms to just guide Cody by his shoulder from room to room.

He wasn’t sure he was going to use most, if any, of them – except for the small kitchen area that apparently always had rations and a bit of actual food for snacks – until they got to the training rooms. Weights, sparring rings, practice weapons, open spaces, a few ranges. Cody was glad he’d at least be able to keep up with his usual training regimen while here. Although he was torn between caution and curiosity at a few of the rooms that Darth Libri implied were more than they appeared, especially with the manic look the man developed when alluding to them.

He still had no interest in filling up any of the unused pools. Even the ones Haar Dush’vorcopa offhandedly mentioned as being good for training.

They finished that part of his tour eventually, and really, how big was this place? His feet were actually starting to hurt. In that way that happened after he had to spend a day at the senate, instead of burn that occurred after a good workout or a bad battle.

Next, he was led back through the residential area, past the studies and gardens, and then they turned back towards where Cody’s mental map said the libraries were.

They stopped before hitting the hallway with the libraries, and Cody was guided through another door.

There was a map right in front of him, and he glanced back and forth to see a new hallway extending down both sides of him. One wall was the usual rock. The other was half rock, half window.

“This is the med center. If you behave, you shouldn’t have much need of it. But I’m pretty certain most beings capable of pain consider it polite to be provided with this sort of space, or at least knowledge of it. You do feel pain, correct? The Kaminoans didn’t eliminate that, did they?” Haar Dush’vorcopa asked, turning to Cody with wide, bright eyes that observed him, taking in everything. Studying him in the most unsettling sense of the word.

Cody took a moment to compose his answer, feeling like he was walking through a mine field, “me and my vode certainly don’t consider it a proper ship unless there’s a medbay, sir.” Haar Dush’vorcopa narrowed his eyes in displeasure and Cody realized his mistake a second later, cursing himself internally, “Libri,” he corrected.

The Sith kept looking at him with that narrowed eyed look, smile a little tighter, and Cody resolutely did not let the thick, cold, unpleasantly electric feeling encompassing them effect his demeanor.

After a few more tense moments, Haar Dush’vorcopa relaxed his smile and spoke again, “don’t worry, Cody-” Cody decided that he really didn’t like his name coming out of an enemy’s mouth, let alone one as unhinged and dangerous as Haar Dush’vorcopa “-you’ll get used to it quickly. Come.”

The Sith clapped a hand on Cody’s shoulder and guided him back out of the med center.

“Now. It’s about dinner time, so we should make out way over to take the trays from Effie.”

* * *

“So how do you like the archive so far?”

Cody looked up from his dinner, the steak was boneless and much easier to cut apart than yesterday’s bird, and quickly tried to figure out if there was anything in particular Darth Libri was looking for, or if he just wanted a general positive review.

“It’s… impressive. Vast. I think the collection is very big, although I’m not very familiar with how this sort of thing usually is to compare,” Cody answered. He watched the Sith as he spoke, trying to figure out if his answer was acceptable. The smile didn’t seem to change.

“I assure you, it is quite large and vast,” Libri said, a bit of almost-pleasant laughter in his voice, “but for you personally? Are the facilities suitable for a GAR clone soldier to live in for a few weeks?”

Cody took his time to finish chewing his bite before answering cautiously, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be.”

“Hmm… I suppose that would be a better question to ask tomorrow, after I give you the rest of the tour, wouldn’t it?” Libri said, somewhat absent as his eyes flickered around, clearly chasing thoughts.

“There’s more?” Cody couldn’t help but blurt out, eyebrows raised incredulously as he quickly put down his silverware, his mouth hanging slightly open in shock.

Haar Dush’vorcopa stilled, coming out of his musings in less than a second to train his eyes back on Cody. His mouth moved into a closed smile, a smirk really, and Cody felt like prey in a very different way than he had been since he first encountered Haar Dush’vorcopa.

“Oh, there’s so much more. So much more to show you,” Haar Dush’vorcopa purred, leaning over the table a bit. Cody couldn’t help but straighten up and move back further in his seat. Stupidly, reflexively acting on his fear.

“But that’s for tomorrow. I won’t be dragging you around anymore today,” the Sith said, intensity decreasing as his smile went back to its normal unsettling but now familiar setting. He went back to eating and Cody followed suit.

“Which parts did you like best, though? Were there any sections of the library you’re particularly interested in? Did you think of any research projects that you’d like pursue while here?” Libri asked, manic and out of nowhere a few minutes later.

Cody’s hands spasmed a bit in surprise and worry. He hadn’t expected those questions at all.

“I… don’t know for certain yet. There is, after all, a lot to study here,” he said, trying to buy time by repeating the sort of language Libri seemed to like to use to describe the archive. Said Sith nodded along, both agreeing with him and clearly urging him to continue, “I did find some of the stories you were talking about earlier interesting. With the murals. Lady… Venoral, was it? That one seemed interesting,” Cody tried. Darth Libri cocked his head in interest.

“Venerial or Venar’ll?” the man asked.

“Venerial,” Cody responded quickly, hoping none of that counted as a lie to the force.

“Ah! Yes, of course! The story of the orchestrator of nine systems is an astounding and fascinating one!” Haar Dush’vorcopa exclaimed, excited as he launched into the tale in more detail than he had earlier in the day.

Cody made sure to pay an appropriate amount of attention as the man rambled of the story, preferring to hear about a Sith lord weaponizing ways, including a surprising amount of plants, to avoid brainwashing against another sect of Sith far more than be subjected to more minefield conversations.

* * *

When Libri told him at the end of dinner that he was free to spend the rest of the evening however he wished, Cody recognized the casual dismissal for what it was and retreated quickly from the dining room.

He strode out into the hallway, bringing his bucket up and putting it firmly back on. As much as he hadn’t liked taking it off around Haar Dush’vorcopa, he couldn’t exactly eat with it on. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to put his buc’ye back on as soon as he could.

He made his way down the hall at a determined but relaxed pace, much easier now that he felt a modicum more safe and prepared. He also felt fairly confident that he knew exactly how to get back to the room he had been given. He intended to spend the rest of the night trying to finish reading through the rules. He wasn’t going to risk wandering around, let alone _using_, anything until he had learned every single rule.

He was confident about his path, but he grew more nervous as he continued on. It took him another two turns to realize that he was cold. Except… he was still in his blacks and armor and that had temperature control, which was working perfectly fine. If something had actually malfunctioned, then he should have gotten his visor fogged up by now with how cold he felt.

This wasn’t normal.

Cody kept walking, letting himself pick up a bit more speed, but refusing to run. No, now that he was paying attention, he felt like he was being watched and chase, hair on the back of his neck prickling. Running would only lead to a chase.

Ther nervousness too, he realized, was more imposed than his actual instincts. A fear forced upon him instead of a reaction to an actual threat.

It wasn’t until the lights in the hallway seemed to actually dim that Cody actually got nervous.

He swallowed heavily, trying to push aside the cold dread that had made its home in the pit of his stomach, overtaking the nice fullness from the warm dinner he had just left.

He was two turns from his hallway when he heard the whispers. They sounded like they were coming from above and behind him, so Cody dropped into a crouch as he turned around, looking for anything that could be a threat as he carefully reached into his boot for his emergency blaster.

The whispers continued, still unintelligible, still sounding like they came from above and behind him, no matter which way he turned and despite the very empty hallway. They were also so weak that he could almost believe they were just little currents of wind whistling through something.

Cody focused on that possibility, and the fact that there was very clearly nothing near him, to stand back up, blaster firmly in hand, and start back down the hallway to his room.

He kept his pace carefully controlled and measured, even as he thought the hallways darkened. But that was a misconception as well, because they would have been pitch black by now if that was the case. It wasn’t getting darker any more than it was getting colder.

He made it back to the room without anything jumping out to eat him and he firmly closed the door and locked it as soon as the lights came on.

He let himself slump against the door as he took in a few shuddering breaths. He looked up, recognizing that the room was light, and he wasn’t cold, and he couldn’t hear any impossible winds.

That… hadn’t been fun. To say the least.

But he hadn’t been harmed. He hadn’t even been endangered. Just psychologically harassed.

He wondered for a moment if it had been Haar Dush’vorcopa, another denizen of this place he had yet to meet, or just the place itself that had done it. He quickly stopped wondering. He had no way to tell and dwelling on it wouldn’t be productive.

No. His plan had been to stay in here and read the rules and rest and eat breakfast until Darth Libri decided to finish the tour. So that was what he was going to do.

Cody made his way to the desk, seemingly untouched since the morning, and sat down, putting his bucket beside the monstrous tome of rules and opening it back up to the silk scrap it come with as a bookmark.

He took a minute to finish calming down before diving back into his readings.

He managed to get most of the way through the rules. He actually got a decent amount of the way through the last section, which was all of the details on punitive measures of the archive, when he finally gave up on memorizing anything else for the night.

He could finish it tomorrow, possibly before FE-3 came in with breakfast.

Cody twisted in his seat and looked at the wardrobe with somewhat wary judgement. He didn’t know what clothes had been stuffed in there and he didn’t particularly want to find out yet.

He sighed, because this situation was way beyond his nonexistent pay grade and it was only the first day and he was already done with the entire thing.

He moved the book to the corner of the desk and started taking off his armor, laying all the pieces down carefully. When the array of white and orange was to his satisfaction, he stood and stretched before making his way to the bed.

He sat down and took off his boots, leaving them beside the bed, before putting his vibroblade and the small blaster under the pillow and sliding under the sheets himself.

The bed was… well it was large and the headboard was touching the wall, where Cody was used to a small bunk attached to the side of a wall. And it was soft, not completely without support, but far softer than his standard GAR mattress. The blankets were much warmer and heavier than he was used to as well. After a few moments he pulled the sheets down slightly and tugged his arms out, knowing he would overheat within the hour if he stayed completely under the covers.

He reached up to the light switch next to the bed, thankful that he wouldn’t have to walk across the room in pitch darkness, and turned the lights off.

He laid in the darkness for a few minutes, just trying to process everything. He’d learned a lot today. And a lot of what he learned just informed him of how little he knew. How little the Republic knew. And he still had forty-eight days to collect information.

He also had forty-eight more days trapped with a weird Sith, weird even by force user or Sith standards, in a dangerous archive that had more space than a Venator-class ship.

One day at a time, he eventually decided, needing some sort of resolution to sleep. He’d take this one day at a time for now, at least until he actually understood how this placed worked. Or how Darth Libri worked.

Okay, he thought, remembering the interactions he’d had with the Sith today, he’d figure out how this place worked and hopefully how to minimize interaction with Libri. Cody had no doubt that he’d never learn how Libri worked.


End file.
